Wisconsin Warrant Search: How to Find Warrant Records in Wisconsin

Finding out about outstanding warrants and proactively taking charge of your situation can lead to a much better outcome for you than evading law enforcement officers or waiting to be arrested by them. 

If you suspect that a warrant has been issued for your arrest in Wisconsin, you may check to find out if your instincts are correct.

Finding a warrant in Wisconsin is pretty easy, and in this article, we'll explain what warrants are and how you can easily find them. 

About Wisconsin Warrants

A warrant is an official order that authorizes law enforcement agents to legally search a property or other spaces, arrest the person listed in it, or perform other actions specified in the order.

Warrants are typically issued and signed by judges who have been convinced by law enforcement officers about probable cause.

In other words, it is the prerogative of the law enforcement officers to provide the judge with probable cause to believe that an offense has been or is about to be committed. 

In Wisconsin, law enforcement officers are also permitted to execute active warrants anywhere in the state.

This means that an individual might be arrested in a different county from the one where they committed the offense.

Warrants issued in the state of Wisconsin remain active until the subject either appear before the court or dies or until the warrant gets revoked by the judge. 

Bench warrants, search warrants, and arrest warrants are some of the most commonly issued warrants in Wisconsin.

Bench warrants are issued, not at the request of law enforcement officers, but directly by judges. 

These types of warrants are issued when a person fails to comply with court orders or when they refuse to show up in court when summoned.

If a person fails to appear in court on the scheduled date of their trial for any criminal offense, a bench warrant may be issued for their arrest.

Individuals may also have bench warrants issued for them if they refuse to pay child support. 

Law enforcement officers do not actively go in search of people with a bench warrant issued for them.

People with a bench warrant may end up getting arrested when the warrant shows up during routine background checks by law enforcement officers, or when they're arrested for other crimes. 

On the other hand, law enforcement officers will actively go looking for people who have been issued an arrest warrant.

Depending on the seriousness of the offender's crime, law enforcement officers and agencies in other states may be permitted to arrest and detain people with arrest warrants issued for them in Wisconsin.

Search warrants are issued by judges at the request of law enforcement or investigating officers.

The judge will sign a search warrant if the officers establish probable cause linking the property to the scene of a crime. 

Warrants in Wisconsin typically contain such information as the name of the person to be arrested or searched, the name of the issuing judge, the physical description of the person or property to be searched, the alleged offense of the subject, and the warrant's date of issuance. 

How to Find Warrants in Wisconsin

You can easily find warrants in the state of Wisconsin online. The Wisconsin court system maintains an online database of court records in the state, which is known as the Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP).

The CCAP provides details of active bench warrants issued in relation to both civil and criminal cases. 

The CCAP database is updated on an hourly basis, but the information on it may not be completely reliable.

As the program notes in its disclaimer, there may be a delay in the posting of court records as a result of technical difficulties.

The CCAP may not display specific records. For instance, if the record you seek is from child protection proceedings, the CCAP will not make it publicly available.

Being a state court database, the CCAP does not have records of federal warrants or warrants issued in other states.

You may have to look elsewhere if you're looking for warrants or court records issued in any state apart from Wisconsin.

Final Words

Warrants in Wisconsin are issued by courts at the request of law enforcement officers, who have managed to establish probable cause with the judge.

Some warrants may not require an immediate search for their subjects, while law enforcement officers immediately go after the subjects of some other types of warrants. 

Whichever type of warrant you've been issued, it's best to proactively manage them immediately, to avoid having to contend with a bigger problem later.

To find out if you have an outstanding warrant in Wisconsin, you may search the state's court records database online. We've explained how to go about it in this article.